Recycled coffee sack coffee warmer

I have been making things out of recycled coffee sacks for a while now but the idea of a cosy for a coffee caffetiere has only just sprung to mind. I have made these two designs with Christmas presents in mind.......The sacking fabric is stuffed with normal quilt wadding and sewn on a standard sewing machine. The warmer is tied to the caffetiere with a button and loop fastening. This can be adjusted to suit different sized coffee makers.

This weeks craft projects.....

Purses

Recently I have been making more purses to sell at a craft fair in the New Year - I really enjoy making them in different types of fabrics. The purse on the right is made from some lovely vintage hand-stitched linen which I found in a charity shop in Cambridge. The beautiful cross stitch design is really elegant and has a wonderful antique vibe.

If you would like to purchase a purse made in your choice of fabric/design then email me (cost £10 per purse made to order - your choice of buttons, threads and fabric).

Candle making

I have been saving odd pots/dieshes for ages with the intention of turning them into candles & I have finally got around to transforming them! I used white candle pellets (from craft

shop) which i melted on the hob and then I poured the melted wax into each container with the addition of a new wick. It is a good way to reuse old pots but as craftting goes the skill level and creativity needed is limited and I would soon get bored of this technique!

Traditional heart design apron

To make the template for this project i simply traced around an old apron; this gave me the shape and size I needed. I then hemed the edges and used ribbon for the ties. To make it more interesting i used bondaweb to attach the hessian and heart and then sewedit all in place. Overall a very easy and effective little project......

William Gear

My recent article on artist William Gear

http://www.chiuni.ac.uk/ottergallery/PictureMonth_WilliamGear.cfm

Christmas stockings.....

The coffee sacks are proving useful once again - this time they are being turned into christmas stockings!

Getting ready for Christmas......

Now it is the 2^nd November I feel it is ok to embark on the massive task of making this years batch of Christmas presents and cards. I have decided for 2010 to make small tree decorations instead of cards and attach a message on each one with a brown luggage tag. The fabric hearts only take a little longer to make than a card and i think are a nice keep-sake. I have stuffed each with wading and finished them with an antique button. The ribbon was purchased from CallyCo in Cambridge (see post below). If I make about 10 a week I should have enough but perhaps I am being too optimistic with the imminent arrival of baby Robson!

baby's room decorations.....

Cambridge has a lovely fabric shop called CallyCo. The shop is situated on Peas Hill (such an amazing name for a road!) near the market. CallyCo has a lovely range of fabrics (not cheap but probably no more expensive than similar shops) and general haberdashery supplies. I am on a fairly tight budget at the moment and beautiful fabric is bit of a luxury. Therefore on my last visit I purchased just ½ metre of fabric and gave myself a personal challenge of seeing how many items I could make for the baby’s room with it. The result was that I was able to re-cover an old blanket box, make some curtain tie-backs and also create decorative bunting for the crib! I feel quite triumphant in my ability to make just a small piece of fabric go such a long way!